


Roll Call

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Fluff, Gen, Nightly Rituals, Sleep, late night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13254519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: It’s been… not a hard day, exactly, but a long one, and Bruce is tired down to his bones. There’s one thing he has to do before he can rest though. One thing he does every night he can.Not every night is a bad night. Some nights, everything actually turns out pretty good. Bruce still worries about his family though.





	Roll Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [savaged](https://archiveofourown.org/users/savaged/gifts).



> Written for the [Gen Batfam Christmas Stocking](https://batfam-christmas-stocking.tumblr.com/) event on tumblr. I chose [batfem](http://batfem.tumblr.com/)'s prompt "late night". Hope you enjoy!!

Bruce runs a hand through his damp hair and tosses his towel in the laundry basket on his way out of the locker room. He pauses by the Batcomputer, dark and looming with only the safety lights illuminating the Cave. He could… Bruce shakes his head. No. It’s late. Only an hour and a bit shy of early morning. And the only open cases he has aren’t urgent.

Leaving the Cave behind, he makes his way to the kitchen. Raids the fridge for a quick snack and eats it standing at the sink, looking out over the moonlit grounds. Out of the city, it’s peaceful at this time of night. No dirty alleys, no backdrop of gunshots and screams. Just the moon and the stars twinkling above the quiet ground.

Inside, the Manor is dark and just as quiet with all his kids in bed. Bruce feels a calm, a peacefulness, that only comes when he knows where all his family are. Knows they’re safe and sound, tucked between a thousand thread count sheets instead of swinging into danger.

It’s been… not a hard day, exactly, but a long one, and Bruce is tired down to his bones. There’s one thing he has to do before he can rest though. One thing he does every night he can. It starts with a winding route back upstairs that takes him past Alfred’s quarters. He pauses outside the door, listens for silence, then cracks it open just enough to reassure himself that yes, Alfred is in bed, asleep. Safe. Then, paranoid mind easing with every step, he goes upstairs to repeat the process with all his children.

Damian had been sent back from patrol just after midnight despite his protests. It is, after all a school night, and grumpy overtired preteens have taught Bruce that curfews are important.  Bruce stops to check on him first. His youngest is splayed out on his back, snoring lightly in tandem with the dog who is curled up beside him. Bruce slips silently into the room to untangle the sheets from Damian’s legs and carefully tuck it around him. His son grumbles a bit in his sleep, but does not wake and Bruce further risks waking him by kissing his forehead. When he lifts his head, green eyes are gleaming at him through the darkness. With a quick stroke of the cat’s soft fur, he leaves them all to sleep. 

One down, four... no, three to go.

Bruce had personally delivered Tim to the Cave not quite an hour after Damian to make sure he got medical attention for a twisted ankle. He finds him now sitting up in bed, ankle propped up on pillows, head tipped back and laptop sliding off his lap. Bruce sighs, a little amused, and sets the laptop on Tim’s nightstand. Moving Tim into a more comfortable position is a little harder but somehow, probably due to painkillers, he doesn’t stir. Not even when Bruce tucks his unruly hair behind his ears and pulls a blanket up to his chin. 

Two down.

After returning Tim, Bruce had passed Cass on her way in as he was heading out again, and she'd given him a quick hug with her “goodnight”. He feels a beat of panic now when he cracks open her door and finds her bed empty. A quick search, though, settles his worry and makes him smile. A small, tugging movement of his lips that is glimpsed for only a moment in the moonlight streaming through the windows. Cass is sitting on a yoga mat beside her bed, limbs pulled into a lotus position and face slack. Either with sleep or deep relaxation. Bruce leaves her be; he knows better than to wake Cass without some kind of body armour on.

Three down.

Jason went off comms an hour and forty-five minutes ago and Oracle reported his last known location to be just outside his apartment. Bruce hates that he can’t stick his head in and check on him now as well. He’d had to console himself with a quick stop by Jason’s safe house on the way home, a quick peak in the window to make sure he really is safe and okay.

Maybe… Maybe sometime Bruce will be able to check him off his list at home.

Dick was last, signing off with a cheery “goodnight, B” before heading home. Bruce takes an extra minute in his doorway, observing his eldest. As much as his kids squabble about it between them, Bruce doesn’t have favourites. But Dick was the first lost bird he took in, the one who started it all, and for that alone he’ll always hold a special place in Bruce’s heart. 

“Bruce?” Dick mumbles. He doesn’t lift his head from his pillow, doesn’t move noticeably at all. But despite the drowsy tone of voice, Bruce suspects he was never really asleep. Just like he did when he a kid, he’ll have been waiting up to make sure Bruce made it back at the end of the night. He, out of all Bruce’s kids, most understands this final check-in ritual.

“Yeah, chum, it’s me,” Bruce says quietly, stepping forward to run his fingers through dark strands of hair. “Go back to sleep.”

Dick hums, reaching up to lock his fingers around a chunk of Bruce’s shirt. “You first.”

Bruce chuckles. “You’ll have to let go of me for that to happen,” he points out. But Dick just tugs a little on his shirt and Bruce gets the hint. He sits on the edge of the mattress and lifts his shirt up, showing scarred and bruised skin where a lucky shot had slipped by his defences earlier. Of course Nightwing noticed. “Just a bruise,” Bruce promises. “I’m fine.”

“Good,” Dick says, looking up at him with serious eyes. And even though Bruce knows he has his own checks he does at the end of the night, he asks, “Everyone else?”

“Also fine.”   


“Good.”

By now, the sky is starting to lighten behind the room’s blackout curtains, chasing the night away. Bruce should really be getting to his own bed, squeezing in a few hours sleep before Alfred forces him out of bed to deal with the demands of another day. But he takes another second, with the house dark and silent save for the steady breathing of his eldest beside him, to just sit and be grateful. Everyone is accounted for. Everyone is safe. Now the night is over.


End file.
